Why HubPages is still my favourite revenue sharing website in spite of Google Panda

Over the past year or so there have been a lot of changes at HubPages and many new rules brought in and this has resulted in a lot of people not being happy with the site and actually leaving. A big part of the problem was caused by Google and what is known as the Google Panda Update which resulted in a considerable drop in the income of hubbers and traffic to their articles. I am not going to get into explaining what all this is about because people have been discussing this ever since it happened, and I am certainly no expert on the workings of Google.

I was and am one of those affected badly by this though and have seen the money I was being able to count on every month diminish to such an extent that some months I no longer have enough for payout. I fully admit to have been one of the most vocal hubbers who have complained in the forums about what has happened here. I am in the process of moving a lot of my hubs off the site and republishing them elsewhere. But this does not mean I am going. I am happy to keep my account with HubPages and to post articles here, and now I will tell you why!

It was over four years ago that I first discovered HubPages, signed up, created a profile and published my first hub. I think I wrote about my American singer-songwriter friend Lynn Carey Saylor and her friendship with the legendary Brian May of Queen. If that wasn’t my first hub it was certainly one of my earliest.

I had been searching the Internet for ways of making money online and saw somewhere an entry that recommended HubPages as a site you could earn money from for publishing your articles. I am a writer so thought I would give it a go.

I was soon to find that I felt very at home here so I wasn't that worried about making money at HubPages at that point because I could see a lot of other benefits in using the site. I enjoyed the ease of navigation and how simple it was to create and publish your articles. HubPages provides modules so you can add photos and videos, maps, links and other options that help make your hubs more interesting for the reader and should help you increase traffic to your site.

Although I enjoyed the easy way provided here for a user to create good quality magazine-style articles it took me a long time to actually make any money, which was why I had signed up to begin with. In fact although I was using Google Adsense, Amazon and eBay ads displayed with my hubs it actually took me over a year to make my first $100.

However, other hubbers told me that this was often the case and that once you had achieved this milestone you could expect more money to come your way on a far more regular basis. This I found to be true and it showed me that it was true, that publishing articles at HubPages could provide you with a source of income from freelance writing for an Internet website. I was hooked!

I also had made a lot of new friends in the HubPage community, many of whom have remained friends although they may no longer use this site. I found HubPages to be a very friendly site where people were happy to explain things if you got stuck. Staff would interact by posting their comments in the forums. It was a very interactive community.

I discovered as well that HubPages is a positive mine of information on just about any subject you can think of. Some fellow hubber will have written a top quality hub about any topic you care to search for.

As a writer too I started using the site as a place to showcase my work. I could easily refer someone to a link to my hub on a specific topic. I took pride in my articles here and have actually got work elsewhere because an employer was impressed with what they saw here.

It was for these reasons I stuck around and didn’t worry about whether money was coming in or not. Now admittedly in those days I had a regular job, which I no longer have, and was not so much in need of regular payments as I am now, but I am currently earning a lot more here now than I was for all the months of my first year here.

I am an optimist by nature and so I am hopeful that things will start improving here again. I have nothing to lose by leaving a lot of my more successful hubs here and possibly much to gain.

I am staying put, thinking positively and giving it all another go! And like the Monty Python comedy show once reminded us to "always look on the bright side of life"!

Recent changes at HubPages with the new system of ‘Idling’ hubs or classing them as ‘Normal’ because they were not performing well or getting good traffic at first annoyed me. HubPages is putting a letter H against your successful writings and calling them Featured Hubs. A lot of mine haven’t made the grade, not because they are not good quality, but because they do not work well here.

HubPages staff are doing what they can to get the site back to how it once was and I can understand why they have made changes here. I can also understand that my writings might well be more successful on other revenue sharing websites such as Wizzley and so I am moving a lot of them. But many of my hubs will be staying here and I am hopeful that my earnings will start going back up again! Like I said, I am an optimist!